When I was young Star Wars was pretty much the entire world to me. Funnily enough it was the exact absence of Star Wars within the mainstream that left the franchise open to someone like me to dream within. I collected a bevy of the (now 'Legends') comics, engrossed myself in the dozens of creative and quality licence games that the franchise was treated to each and every year and went back and rewatching the movies regularly enough to be able to quote whole scenes from the Episode 1 and 2. They say absence makes the heart grow stronger and in many ways I think media really does benefit from that exact phenom. I always said that Andromeda failed to really land with the impact it did for many reasons, one of which being it's relatively closeness to the end of Mass Effect 3- and Todd Howard similarly expressed in his recent MrMattyPlays interview how "It's not bad to miss things". That's something I haven't really felt from some of my favourite franchises in a while- I haven't had the room to miss them.
Has Marvel ever given us sufficient room to look back on it's Halcyon days with rose tinted glasses? Of course not, they're too busy pelting the audience with increasingly garish side project feature deconstructions that contradict themselves so fully they need to create other media to explain the inconsistencies! Just wait, I'll bet they're already cooking up some sort of series or show twist to explain why Nick Fury acts so differently in Secret Invasion to The Marvels- when the real reason is simply because they pump this stuff out too quickly to check each other's work- and the same is very much becoming true with Star Wars- even if that universe boasts a much vast swathe of stories to potentially choose from.
So I've just slipped out of touch with it. Ever since Andor I decided the series had finally hit that high note it would never really reach again until the next season of Andor, and thus I avoided all else. But am I really doing myself a favour, or just cutting out something I love out of fear of being hurt? And more importantly, how does this tie back around to games? Well, Star Wars is really paired back on the number of creative and interesting titles they put out and it's gotten to the point where two of the biggest Star Wars games currently or, or close to, circulation seem to be fairly similar to one another. Sure, Fallen Order and Outlaws is different in the nitty gritty genre talk- but they're both riding the coat-tails of uncharted in one way or another, ain't they?
I miss the days when you could play the Star Wars racer games, then the beat 'em ups, then the Doom-likes, then the RPGs. I miss Star Wars being creative instead of becoming constrained by it's own success. And though I think those days died with the Disney acquisition- as the 'newness' of exclusivity fades and the reigns start to loosen, murmurs arise of some of those incredible off kilter, and maybe even super niche, Star Wars projects we'd use to hear about. Kind of like how Squadron's dropped and catered solely towards the sim flight crowd, however small they are, now the tactical squad-based players can rejoice for today is their time to feed!
Respawn Entertainment, yes the guys behind Fallen Order, announced some years ago how they were working alongside a small fresh studio on a Star Wars project. Such could have meant anything at the time, of course- and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to presume this was yet another action adventure given how that was the basis of the game Respawn had in front of them. They could even share assets given aligned engines! But it seems I might have been a bit presumptuous. (No pun intended.) Maybe I should have better paid mind to the makeup of the team. Veterans of 'Elder Scrolls Online', 'XCom', 'Civilisation'- actually solid and innovative titles! Then it wouldn't have been such a flashbang announcement to learn that it actually is a tactics game specifically designed to leverage the team's familiarity with XCom!
Oh yes, that means those nail biting missions where you have to choose between your objective and the lives of your favourite squadmate, or where the perfect plan that couldn't go wrong slips between the fresh crack of a bad roll, or the impossible crit that downs a monolith in a moment of sheer red-hot desperation; those are all on the holo-table for the Galaxy Far Away! Their creative director, Greg Foertsch seems eager to impress his desire to push the envelope too. He pondered about the "space" of the genre to "grow, through immersion and storytelling and visual presentation and pacing"- which are all very ambitious vectors for a new studio- I can understand why they wanted Respawn along for backup.
I get goosebumps thinking about it- especially when it comes to storytelling- my favourite avenue of games like these. I'm all about dynamic moments where the player's personal war comes to life in most real ways, unexpected events even outside of the raw gameplay the colour the breadth of the personalities you are lording over, breaths life into these games in a way that tickles those same sorts of emotions as my favourite Colony Sims! I'd love to see the ways that a team could make that work across a Star Wars setting- because we can't just be some face squad of clones- give us the chance to build relationships with these characters before they get crushed under the boot of a missed 95% shot. (That's pretty much the end of my relationship with any unit.)
This is the first time in a long while I've looked at anything coming Star Wars' way with genuine wonder and excitement. Perhaps ever since the Mandalorian season 1, given that I actually expected Andor to be a waste of time before I watched it and got my mouth shut solid for how unflinchingly brilliant that show was. XCom is one of my favourite games of all time and I think the developer who sherpards that franchise has lost their way. They don't even seem interested in this style of game anymore, whether because of the lack of public appeal or just growing cold on the genre creatively. Bit Reactor may just be the hands to pass that torch onto- and if those hands also happen to be holding a spare lightsaber or two that'd be sick. Even sicker if that lightsaber was dated back to the Old Republic- but now I'm just getting silly with my hopes, imma stop.
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